the e in friend stand for effort
this is a sign to reach out
this week’s Thought (singular)
froot loops my beloved
hi
this might come as a shock to you (it certainly did to me), but the cure for loneliness is company. and the secret to leaving a social interaction feeling energised is to interact with the people who energise you. this is all very mind-blowing, and the revelation is the result of something a dear friend told me in passing.
making friends as an adult, especially after you leave an academic setting, is scary. maintaining old friendships as an adult, especially after you leave an academic setting, is very, very difficult.
shared experiences are such a great tool for forming bonds with people and cultivating deep friendships, but once the experiences are no longer shared, once you’re living on different continents, or maybe just not forced to see each other regularly, it stops becoming easy.
it takes effort to hold on to those relationships, and it takes work to keep them alive.
if i really want to continue that friendship, my actions need to show it. considering the fact that we’re all only getting busier at this particular stage of life, so full of flux and endings and beginnings, this will be hard. but my god, is there anything more lovely than saying ‘i love you. i cherish this friendship. let us keep talking.’?
sometimes, it’s natural. keeping in touch after physical separation is a given, rather than the result of any real thought. but some friendships require more work. sure, it might be awkward to say for the first time in your life, ‘we should hang out! outside school/college/work! because we don’t have classes anymore, but i enjoy your company!’, but i truly believe that a key part of any friendship is effort, and the willingness to put in the work to make it work.
like a lot of issues from the recent past, this one is also all over the place. more a scattered concept than any real substance, but the sentiment remains. talk to your friends! appreciate them and their company, and let them know it! take the effort to hang out with them, reply to their texts, make sure you stay in touch, be a friend!!
ps: merry christmas :DD
(i’m diversifying the kind of content this space usually sees. today’s enthusiasm is not due to sleeping cats, but instead baked goods.)
English Recitation Competition
A Blind Spot, Awash, Tobi Kassim
And if I give up on consequences is that despair or passion? I can’t protect myself from either.
Hymn for the Hurting, Amanda Gorman
Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them.
The Fury of Rainstorms, Anne Sexton
Depression is boring, I think and I would do better to make some soup and light up the cave.
A Poll!
Middle School Book Review
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
an absolutely gorgeous novel, with beautiful scenery descriptions and intricately woven relationships. tender and action-packed at the same time, and so much care and delicateness in each word. highly recommend for the world-building, the gruesomeness, the creativity, and the fascinating familial ties and their navigation.
find all shared books here.
A Picture!
The Good Side of the Internet
Has The Zodiac Killer Mystery Been Solved (Again)? (investigative)
For more than 50 years, his identity has remained a maddening riddle. But now an L.A. novelist-turned-amateur sleuth may have finally cracked the case, revealing who was behind some of the most notorious serial slayings in California history.
In 2013, a fire-sprinkler engineer fell five stories from the rafters of a church, shattered 108 bones, and almost died. Then began his battle to walk and live again.
Departures (blurb by Longreads)
In this essay, Tan Tuck Ming reflects on what’s gained and what’s lost for the hundreds of thousands of Filipina workers who come to cities like Hong Kong for work as domestic helpers, leaving their loved ones and entire lives at home to become embedded in new families abroad. Tang writes from the perspective of an employee who conducts intake interviews with workers seeking new jobs, but also as someone who grew up in a household with maids. (His Auntie Mel is the maid he remembers the most, and the woman he associates with love.) Tang tells the heartbreaking story of one woman, Daisy, who’s given up so much. “What is the Filipina brand of love?” asks Tang. “It is to love your family to the degree that to provide for it you would become contracted to another. It is to love a child by leaving and loving other children with the same hardness, because while the intensity of love is undeniable, the value of its currency is what flickers and grows across a border.” Sadly, this is the story for so many.
Inside one of the world’s first human composting facilities
Death is a part of life at Return Home, where families grieve and bodies become soil
‘You Can’t Sail Around the World By Yourself’
Susie Goodall wanted to circumnavigate the globe in her sailboat without stopping. She didn’t bargain for what everyone else wanted.
this week’s Song
Kaantha Reprised by Masala Coffee
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3
woohoo? boohoo? just hoo? let me know!